Did You Know...

Question: Who the hell is Michael Posner, and why the hell is he apologizing to China?!

Answer: Michael Posner is the former head agitator at the transnationalist Human Rights First, who represents the textbook State Department mindset of pandering to the worst America-bashers without hesitation or shame. Foggy Bottom isn’t just stuck on stupid. It’s stuck on American self-sabotage.

Michael Posner has been the executive director of Human Rights First since its founding in 1978. HRF describes itself as a group that “works in the United States and abroad to create a secure and humane world by advancing justice, human dignity and respect for the rule of law.” In practice, HRF is an open borders group that opposes all government efforts to control illegal immigration and strengthen American national security. Posner received his B.A. in history from the University of Michigan and his J.D. from UC Berkeley; before coming to HRF, he worked for the law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal. He has taught at Yale Law School and is a visiting Lecturer at Columbia Law School.

In September 2009, Posner became a key deputy of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s:

Michael H. Posner was sworn in as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor on September 23, 2009.

Prior to joining State Department, Mr. Posner was the Executive Director and then President of Human Rights First. As its Executive Director he helped the organization earn a reputation for leadership in the areas of refugee protection, advancing a rights-based approach to national security, challenging crimes against humanity, and combating discrimination. He has been a frequent public commentator on these and other issues, and has testified dozens of times before the U.S. Congress. In January 2006, Mr. Posner stepped down as Executive Director to become the President of Human Rights First, a position he held until his appointment as Assistant Secretary.

With all that background in mind, open-borders radical Posner’s trashing of Arizona’s immigration law at a meeting in China should come as no surprise. No surprise at all. The “Human Rights First” is to Blame America First. Posner has not disappointed his far Left colleagues in his new governmental position of authority.

Q Was there any areas in which China sort of turned the tables and raised its own complaints or concerns about U.S. practices around the globe or at home? Can you give some examples there —

MR. POSNER: Sure. You know, I think, again, this goes back to Ambassador Huntsman’s comment. Part of a mature relationship is, do you have an open discussion where you not only raise the other guy’s problems but you raise your own and you have a discussion about it? We did plenty of that.

We had experts from the U.S. side, for example, yesterday talking about treatment of Muslim Americans in an immigration context. We had discussion of racial discrimination. We had a back-and-forth about how each of our societies are dealing with those sorts of questions.

…Q (Off mike.)

MR. POSNER: I’m not going to get into the details.

We’ve expressed in the past, you know, our concern about the nature of the detention. And we certainly continue to be concerned about the fact that he’s in prison.

Q Did the recently passed Arizona immigration law come up? And if so, did they bring it up? Or did you bring it up?

MR. POSNER: We brought it up early and often. It was mentioned in the first session and as a troubling trend in our society, and an indication that we have to deal with issues of discrimination or potential discrimination. And these are issues very much being debated in our own society.

Q Did they — did they discuss anything about their concerns about Chinese visiting in Arizona? Any concerns raised?

MR. POSNER: No, that was not raised.

So: American diplomat Michael Posner, on a taxpayer-subsidized trip to Red China supposedly representing the best interests of Americans, proactively brought up the Arizona law “early and often” as an issue of “discrimination or potential discrimination” to smear his own countrymen in front of one of the world’s leading repressive regimes — so repressive, in fact, that Posner’s own boss, Hillary Clinton, once demanded that former President Bush boycott the Chicoms over their miserable human rights record.

Jay Nordlinger is rightly aghast: “Did we, the United States, talking to a government that maintains a gulag, that denies people their basic rights, that in all probability harvests organs, apologize for the newimmigration law in Arizona? Really, really?”

For years, African traders seeking cheap goods direct from the source have flocked to Guangdong, the manufacturing province known as the “world’s factory.” For the most part, the African community in Guangzhou, Guangdong’s capital, has thrived. Markets are devoted to African buyers and whole neighborhoods cater to them. What was a community of a few hundred traders a decade ago now includes as many as 20,000.

But Guangzhou’s African community, China’s largest, is at a breaking point.

The country’s faltering economy is putting the squeeze on “Little Africa,” or “Chocolate City,” as locals call it. Numbers are down and business is suffering. All-important visas are being denied or granted only for the short term. Africans who allow their visas to expire — and many do — are often imprisoned and forced to pay a hefty fine.

In January, the Chinese government announced a crackdown on foreigners living illegally in Guangzhou, and, according to interviews with more than two dozen Africans working in the city, the community is facing increased persecution at the hands of police.

At the markets, talk of the crackdown is common.

“The knock on the door came very early in the morning and I knew straight away it was the police,” recalled Hugo, a 29-year-old trader from Aba City, Nigeria, who leans on a cane as he describes his most recent run-in with police.

“They’d been raiding homes and taking people away since August, so I knew they’d found me. I jammed the door shut and jumped out of the apartment window,” he said.